


Scorpion Rising

by jashinist_feminist



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Boarding School, Caning, Corporal Punishment, Friendship, Hero Worship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, No Romance, Prequel, era specific norms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-20 18:29:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16561025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jashinist_feminist/pseuds/jashinist_feminist
Summary: Sasori is a lonely school boy in the 1920s. Enchanted by all the art and culture that the decade has to offer, he copes with his isolated existence by embracing his unique hobbies. But then he meets San, and his transformation into a deadly spy begins.A prequel to my upcoming SasoKona 1940s au, describing how Sasori became a spy.Written for Sasori Mini Bang 2018, hosted by myself, Konohagakureship, and thatshipcat.





	Scorpion Rising

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! As some of you may know, I have been working on a 1940s Sasokona for the past few weeks. I was hoping to have it ready for upload for the Sasori Mini Bang event I was hosting, but the first chapter didn't really fit the theme. So, I created this piece to detail how Sasori becomes the person he is in that fic, and what inspires him to become a spy.
> 
> This fic is set in the 1920s, and discusses some themes of child abuse and corporal punishment, which was considered acceptable in that time. Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that I am firmly against any form of corporal punishment in schools and for disciplining children. As you will see, the corporal punishment certainly has a negative effect on Sasori and causes him to become despondent and unfeeling as an adult.

The halls of the ancient building echoed with the rebound of footsteps, as shoes clacked against the heavily worn stones. The younger pupils ran in clusters, weaving around the crowds of older pupils, as they strode along at a more leisurely pace.

All of them walked in groups together.

All but one.

Sasori burrowed against the window, watching as the other students passed him by. He had a free period, but instead of enjoying the respite from class, he detested it, for the fact that it meant waiting an excessively long period until the next class. He would have much rather had his classes together in the morning, then had the afternoon free to do as he pleased and work on his hobbies.

Until then, he had tucked himself in the alcove of a window at the very edge of a corridor, almost concealed by a decorative pillar that created an arch before the alcove. Most people rushed past, ignoring him, or not even noticing him.

Sasori didn’t mind.

After all, he rarely involved himself with the antics of the other pupils. They cared little for his interests, and Sasori cared even less for theirs. Instead, he wriggled further against the window, gazing out at the drifting red leaves past the window. The hues of autumn always seemed to match his hair, that currently clung to the cold misty condensation on the pane of the window.

As the footsteps of the disappearing crowds drew to a close, one pair of footsteps echoed louder than all other, growing louder as they approached. Sasori expected them to continue on, but then they slowed to a stop in front of him. Sasori glanced up from under long defined lashes, his half-closed gaze rising to meet the new visitor.

“It’s Sasori, isn’t it?”

Sasori absorbed the sight of the visitor, noticing that it was one of the older boys from his schoolhouse. He was at least five years older than Sasori, but looked like a man already, with broad shoulders, elaborate puffy hair, a wise knowing look that graced his features, and had seemingly reached his full adult height already.

Sasori nodded, finding himself not in the mood to speak.

The stranger gazed down, his expression neutral but of a wary kindness behind his authoritative stance. “Why are you sitting here by yourself?”

Sasori pointed to his contact book, showing his free period.

“You have a free period?”

Sasori nodded.

“Aren’t you going to go and spend it with your friends?”

Sasori shook his head. He didn’t want to tell this giant that he didn’t actually have friends at the school. The other students irritated him, and their company was worse than any dull lesson could ever be.

“No?”

Sasori nodded.

“How old are you?”

Finally forced to speak, Sasori reluctantly opened his mouth. “Twelve.”

“No way! You look younger.”

Sasori inwardly sighed, knowing that he did look young for his age. His cheeks were still round, his eyes large and languid, and he had yet to overtake his grandmother in height. Maybe when he saw her at Christmas he might have finally done so, but he highly doubted it. None of his clothes from the previous years had grown too short for him yet, and they showed no sign of doing so anytime soon at all.

The stranger smiled warmly. “You’ll get your growth spurt soon, little bean. I did.”

“I am not a bean,” retorted Sasori.

The older boy laughed while Sasori flared red to match his hair. “I finally made you speak, huh?”

“I’m not a bean,” insisted Sasori. He decided to turn the tables on this intruder. “Shouldn’t you be at class?”

“I’m on hall patrol,” replied the older boy.

Sasori noticed the prefect badge attached to the front lapel of the boy’s blazer, and it all made sense. Around him, the other boys had disappeared, whether to class, the library, or to fool around outside in the last rays of the sunshine of the year. Sasori and the older boy were the only two remaining in the corridor.

“I’m always on the lookout for you young ones,” explained the older boy. “I remember when I was your age. I’ve seen you on your own a lot. Homesick?”

“Not really,” said Sasori. It wasn’t a complete lie.

“Oh?”

“I live with my grandmother,” explained Sasori. He realised too late that he was already giving away far more information than he would typically care too. He bit down on his lower lip, chewing slightly, mentally chiding himself for his foolishness. He glanced back up at the boy, wondering why he felt so compelled to release so much classified intel on the workings of his inner life.

“Not your parents?”

“They died in the Great War,” replied Sasori. “My father died during the Battle of the Somme, and my mother died after an accident at her war job.”

“I’m sorry,” said the older boy, a tinge of softness entering his tone, which had previously been full of confident authority. “You must miss them.”

Sasori wanted to say it didn’t matter, that he couldn’t even remember them, but the words died in his throat. It would be a lie, to claim he had no memory of their faces. He still remembered his father’s red hair, which he had inherited, and the gentle grey-brown of his mother’s eyes, which he had also inherited. He still remembered his father’s watch and his mother’s pearl necklace, his tiny fingers tracing across the smooth cool beads. He remembered nestling in bed between their two bodies, cocooned in a protective barrier from any of the night terrors that would plague a young child.

Instead Sasori swallowed and then nodded, hair falling across his face like a small child. Which he was, even as he hated to admit it.

He kicked himself internally, for baring himself in such a vulnerable in front of this mere stranger. But the truth of the matter was, Sasori could not recall the last time anyone had asked him how he was, or how he felt. And Sasori never had anyone that he could even approach, either. Not that he wanted to. There was no point, after all.

“You’re not the only person who lost someone, Sasori,” the older boy reached over, and laid his hand on Sasori’s shoulder.

Sasori immediately flinched, and then felt his whole body freeze. At San’s brief moment of contact, Sasori recalled the crack of a switch, Granny Chiyo screaming at him for touching her ornaments, and he took a sharp intake of breath.

He sat still, as still as he possibly could and gazed down at the floor, focusing very, very hard on the pattern of the stones.

Sometimes he truly wished he couldn’t feel.

But this wasn’t Granny Chiyo, this was San.

And Sasori was sitting beside him, not thrown humiliatingly over a low couch.

Slowly, his body unclenched, and he felt himself relax under the weight of the older boy’s hand. He glanced back up at him, peeping from under chunks of red hair.

The older boy’s yellow eyes had grown sad and misty. Sasori tilted his head curiously, even as he felt the older boy squeeze his shoulder slightly.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” admitted Sasori.

“It’s San. Please call me San.”

“I’m sorry you lost someone too, San.”

The older boy glanced down at him, and his eyes were wide with appreciation. He released Sasori’s shoulder, and then swung his legs up on the window sill beside Sasori, so that they faced each other. He watched as San took in the sight of Sasori’s art books spread around himself on the window sill, and the tiny miniature puppet who was barely bigger than his thumb that perched next to Sasori against the window pane.

“You like art?” asked San, his yellow eyes flickering over the titles of the hardcovers of the books.

Sasori nodded.

“What do you like best?”

“I like lots of art…I like things that are old, that have lasted forever…” replied Sasori. Inside of his chest he felt something glowing, almost as if he was basking in the joy of being recognized. The feeling was a foreign one, but Sasori acknowledged very quickly that it felt like a very positive one. Before he could even muse on the sensation further, he realised that he was falling very hard and very fast for the sensation, and there was little opportunity to go back. “I don’t like Dadaism so much or the new movements…but I think my favourite art type is puppetry.”

“Puppetry? You’ll like studying art in the next year.”

Sasori nodded eagerly. He’d already looked up the syllabus, and had eagerly read the books already. He kept them under his bed, and sometimes liked to trail his index fingers across the spines as he lay gazing into the darkness, to remind himself that one day he could study them.

“I like making things,” added Sasori. “I used to like helping my dad fix his watch. He said he would give it to me one day.”

“And did he?”

Sasori waved a thin arm with a watch dangling from it, several links too large for his bony wrist.

San laughed. “I think it will be a little while until it fits you properly yet.”

Sasori held his arm close to him. “But I like to wear it.”

“That’s understandable.”

San sat with Sasori for the whole of the free period, asking Sasori about his art and his books. Sasori swung his legs back and forth from the edge of the window ledge, legs which still didn’t quite touch the ground. He answered all of San’s questions politely, and then accepted one of San’s favourite books about a spy that San thought he would like.

As the bell rung for next class, Sasori scooped up his bag and stuffed his books inside. He clasped his puppet figure, and tucked it inside the inner pocket of the breast of his blazer.

As they both stood up, San crouched down to Sasori’s height, and laid a hand on his shoulder as a gesture of friendship. “Come and talk to me again, if you ever need anything, Sasori.”

Sasori nodded meekly, in awe of the older boy’s kindness. Most the prefects were heady with the authority they had been entrusted with, and overly zealous in their discipline of their younger classmen. Fortunately Sasori had never fallen afoul of any of them, being quiet and largely unnoticeable.

Until San, who finally had.

Sasori practically hopped to his next class, and even chirpily answered some of the teacher’s questions. He had been truthful when he spoke to San, he liked art, history and science best. He loved anything that meant he could make things or find out fascinating information.

After lessons had finished, Sasori spent most of his evening after dinner in his room. He used to share his dormitory with a boy called Komushi, but Komushi had passed away of tuberculosis, after keeping Sasori awake all night with his incessant coughing. Once Komushi had passed, the other students had spread rumours that Sasori had poisoned him, after growing sick of the coughing.

Sasori told himself that he didn’t care. He didn’t want to share his dormitory anyway, and instead filled the room with his art. Tiny puppets lined his bedside table and the window sill, so that it was like he had an audience of tiny people. Usually he would draw in the evenings, but sometimes he read and listened to the radio. He almost wished that he had family who lived nearby who could take him out to the cinema or the theatre sometimes, like some of the other boy’s families. During the holidays, Granny Chiyo occasionally took him out to the theatre if she was in a good mood, and told Sasori to sit very still and quietly like a good boy. Sasori was always enthralled by the art on display, and so did as instructed.

But there were no term-time treats in that manner.

On this particular evening, Sasori sketched San’s features, recalling him the way that how Sasori remembered him as they sat at dinner. San sat at the table with the other prefects, in the very centre, commanding authority over all of them. Sasori thought to himself that sooner or later San would become the next Head Boy, and what he saw now was San at the cusp of his greatness. Sasori wanted to immortalize him in this very moment, so that he could remember it forever. 

* * *

San wasn’t just a kindly older boy. Sasori spotted him shouting at two of his classmen in the hall for knocking aside one of their few female teachers in their haste to race each other down the stairs. He could be stern and strict. His expression was always calm and stoic. But Sasori had never liked any of the boys anyway, so he carried on his way, gleeful that San had chosen him to be his friend and not any of them.

Sasori was the chosen one.

Weeks past. Sasori felt his heart glow each time San smiled at him in the hallways. He even took to learning most of San’s schedule, creeping into the library where he knew San would be studying. Sasori would pull out his book, burrow down into an armchair, occasionally peeping over at San as he studied. Sasori didn’t know if San ever saw him, or even noticed Sasori’s peculiar habit, but he seemed unaware, or at least unconcerned. On one occasion Sasori followed San outside to where San played sport with his team, but the cold weather drew him back inside rapidly. Instead Sasori curled against the closest window pane and watched securely in the sanctity of the warmth and dry, with one cheek pressed against the cold glass of the window.

But even though Sasori had made a new friend, that didn’t extend to his similarly aged classmates. Sasori remained alienated from them as ever, unwilling to partake in their vulgar games of shoving, pushing, and tussling with each other. Usually he was able to ignore them, but on the occasions where he could not, he found himself kneeling at the foot of a stairwell, collecting his belongings. Despondent, he tucked away his art books, a stray puppet figure who had also taken a tumble, and several scattered pencils for sketching. They had somehow managed to clatter down all the stairs, across the stairwell, and down the hallway.

“Hey little bean,” greeted a warm voice. Sasori glanced up, to spot San standing over him, a warm expression on his face that was full of concern. “Do you want help?”

Sasori nodded.

San bent down and scooped up Sasori’s books in his larger hands. He helped Sasori tuck them away in his bag in an orderly experienced fashion.

“The younger boys are such sods, right?” Said San.

Sasori nodded.

“They used to do it to my bag when I was your age all the time. I suppose they thought it was funny. Inconvenient and annoying, more like.”

Sasori nodded hastily, agreeing strongly. Now he would be late for class, and Sasori hated to be late, or to keep others waiting.

“I can walk you to your class if you like?” offered San.

Sasori nodded again. San helped him to his feet, and ruffled his hair. Usually Sasori would have hated someone touching his hair and probably bitten them if he could risk it, but when San touched him, he glowed with pleasure under his warm fingers.

“I’ll explain to your teachers what happened,” added San. “Then you won’t get in trouble when it wasn’t your fault.”

Sasori let San guide him down the corridors, his footsteps echoing glumly throughout the hallway.

As they walked, San finally cleared his throat. “You know little bean, the things that might make you seem like a weird kid now, won’t always make you just weird. One day, they’ll be your strengths, and you’ll be very glad of them.”

Sasori glanced up curiously, intrigued by San’s words. Suddenly, for a brief moment, he didn’t feel so ashamed for his odd mannerisms, and felt a sense of pride in himself. The thought of all his little trinkets, his dolls, his puppets, somehow becoming things of beauty that would last forever, admired by all to see, made him thrum with joy.

He wasn’t just the weird orphaned boy his grandmother scolded…and occasionally caned.

Sasori trotted along until he reached his classroom. San knocked, then wrapped his arm around Sasori’s shoulders, guiding him in.

“Do excuse us arriving late,” announced San, as the teacher turned to greet them, and the whole of the class glanced up. “It was no fault of Sasori’s. Apparently some of these younger lads still find it funny to throw people’s bags down the stairs. Pathetic, if you ask me. They ought to be caned.”

Sasori gloated with delight at the thought of them doubled over, crying in pain, as the thin rods sang of blistering sharp pain. As much as he hated the sensation of the cane whenever Granny Chiyo slapped against his body; the thought of it hitting those who belittled and hurt him seemed cathartic.

“Thank you San,” replied the teacher. They pointed to Sasori’s seat at the edge of the class, where he sat by himself. “Take a seat, Sasori. We’re working from page thirty five today.”

Sasori felt San’s hand cup the back of his head, before guiding him forward. He glanced up at San, who nodded to him.

“I’ll see you at lunch break, Sasori,” instructed San.

He didn’t called him ‘little bean’ in front of the class. Sasori glowed with gratitude, but then reluctantly left San’s side, pattering across the room, before huddling over in his seat. The lesson dragged on, whilst his bullies sat quietly at the front of the room, somewhat more subdued than normal. Sasori wondered to himself whether they really would be caned. If so, he thought he might like to watch it.

At lunch break, he collected his things and pattered along the hallway to the canteen. Sasori tended to patter along at a rapid pace for lunch, disliking waiting for unnecessary long moment of time. He accepted his bowl of unappetizing mush, then carried it to the far edge of the table where he had the prime view to watch San sit at his table with the prefects.

Yet, San was not there.

Sasori told himself not to worry, that San may simply be late, but then there was were the bubbles of curious murmurs that trembled across the room. Sasori glanced up from his table, and saw the gathered crowd of schoolboys just outside the entrance to the canteen. More boys left their tables and their lunches to join them and witness what was going on. Never able to miss a noteworthy moment, Sasori climbed up, and went to join them, leaving the sorry-looking plate abandoned the table.

In the middle of the school hallway, San stood stern and sick, clutching a cane himself. With more authority than the headmaster, the first of Sasori’s bullies bent over, trousers down to his ankles. There was a familiar crack, and the boy shrieked.

Of course, San was a prefect.

And San could hand out corporal punishment.

The corners of Sasori’s lip curled with pleasure.

They deserved it.

Sasori watched the caning session in its entirety, forgetting about the plate of mush from the canteen waiting for him. It mattered little. One of the boys glanced up, looking at Sasori, and his eyes were full of hurt as they locked onto Sasori’s. Sasori felt nothing but a coldness enveloping his heart with cool, unfeeling wooden fingers. They had brought this on themselves, after all.

San was wonderful. A perfect stern beacon of discipline. Sasori felt pride rise in his chest, that of all the lonely friendless boys in the school, San had chosen him to protect. Oh, he most certainly had to draw this, and capture this beautiful moment for all eternity. San was Sasori’s _prize_.

Sasori simply grinned in response to the other boy’s tears. No one in the school had ever truly seen him smile before, so Sasori graced him with bared teeth and eerie wide eyes. The boy whimpered, and then San struck again. The boy cried out, and stared at Sasori, utterly bewildered by Sasori’s eager grin.

San glanced around, to see what the boy was staring at, so Sasori switched his expression to a pout, an extension of his usual down-trodden expression. San nodded to him as their eyes met. Sasori felt a connection flow between himself and San, and then San unleashed a final lash on the first boy. Whimpering, the boy stood upright, and hobbled away.

 _Pathetic,_ thought Sasori.

The second boy bent over, and San lashed out again, the cane singing of pain and agony, the boy crying out as it struck him. Sasori unbared his wicked grin again as he also glanced up to look at Sasori. He let each and every one of the boys see his smile. He didn’t want them to forget it, after all. Or to ever understand what Sasori was truly capable of.

Later that evening, as Sasori sat smirking to himself in the library, San settled down on the seat opposite him.

“They’re all taken care of now,” he said softly, his larger hand patting Sasori’s as it rested on the leather armrest of the chair. “They won’t be bothering you again, little bean.”

“I’m not a bean,” replied Sasori, although the retort that had previously been in his tone was no longer there.

“No, you’re not,” agreed San. “Listen to me now, Sasori, don’t let anyone ever hurt you. You don’t deserve to hurt.”

Sasori glanced up, the words a bizarre revelation to himself. San gazed back honestly with his yellow eyes, and Sasori simply slumped forwards, overcome with emotion that he wasn’t used to dealing with. His chest thudded in rapid succession, and he didn’t know what to say or do.

San reached over, and wrapped a long arm around Sasori’s thin shoulders. He drew Sasori close into an embrace. Sasori couldn’t recall being hugged since his parents had died. He didn’t know what to do. A lurid sensation rose in his chest, and his impulses suddenly caught fire. He tried to fight them, tried to stay still so he could process them, but it was no good. He lunged forwards and clung to San’s shirt, burrowing closely against the older boy. He rubbed his face against San’s chest, against the hard pectoral muscles. They felt sturdy and uncompromising beneath the tip of his nose and his cheeks.

“Everything will be ok,” San murmured under his breath.

Sasori couldn’t let go. Even as he internally scolded himself, he didn’t want to release himself from the warmth and comfort of San’s arms. He knew this was unbecoming of himself, a twelve year old boy. His Granny Chiyo would have caned him for sure, but she wasn’t here.

Sasori closed his eyes, wishing nothing more than he could go to sleep right here, where he felt so protected and safe. One comforting hand rubbed a circle on his back in a steady rhythm. After what felt like a lifetime and yet only a few seconds all in one, he felt San rise from his seat, still carrying him, and pace down the hallway towards the dormitory rooms. His footsteps were heavy, decisive, yet he carried Sasori steadily in his arms.

Sasori expected San to return him to his dormitory room, to leave him to sleep away his anguish. But they didn’t go in the direction of the younger boy’s rooms, they turned in the direction of the older boy’s rooms. Sasori found himself in the prefect’s private dormitory, and felt San settle him down on a foreign bed. He felt San tug his shoes off, and in response, Sasori wriggled his freed toes. He felt San tuck a blanket up over his waist, and then Sasori snuggled against the pillow, inhaling the familiar scent of San.

A small radio was blaring some popular music. It sounded jazzy, and made Sasori think of Paris, with all the artists gathered outside all the cafes with their sketchbooks. He wished one day that he could be considered one of them. Back at Granny Chiyo’s, Sasori tended to listen to music on her gramophone. If she was in a good mood, she would let him pick the music. Sasori always chose the classics, but somehow the jazzy music seemed to suit San’s tastes.

Through a half-open eye, he watched San sit down at his desk, turn down the radio, light a candle resting on his desk, and reach for several sheaths of paper and a fountain pen, beginning some of his schoolwork for the night.

Sasori watched him for a few moments, but his lidded eyes blinked, and each blink meant that his eyes closed for longer each time. Sleep came within moments of that. 

* * *

A transformation took place inside of Sasori.

He did not say that he had changed character per se, but rather that the revelation of San’s words had given birth to what already existed within Sasori.

Sasori merely unleashed what San had showed him that he was truly capable of upon the world. Months and years of pattering around unnoticeably had given him a healthy knowledge of the more intimate secrets of his fellow classmen; knowledge that could become very valuable.

San had been right in that all the things that made Sasori ‘weird’ were what would be his strengths. His dollmaking and puppet-making skills were used for creating terrifying limbs, that were excellent to hide in the other boy’s rooms, an easy and simple way to terrorize even the hardest of individuals. Sasori found that he could create the perfect mocking tone to write blackmail for unpleasant individuals, disguising his handwriting and his usual choice of pens, and adapting his tone and language to whatever suited the scenario best.

Some of their belongings soon ended up in bizarre places too. Since it was acceptable to throw Sasori’s prized belongings and his art down the stairs, Sasori decided it must be acceptable to throw their most prized possessions in the pond, the toilets, beneath the headmaster’s new motorcar, and even in the large stinking rubbish bins at the back of the canteen.

All without a trace of the culprit.

Of course, they certainly _suspected_ Sasori, but how could they point any fingers when there was such little proof?

And as time went by, as Sasori grew more intelligent and experienced, each student he had cause to dislike found themselves to be the victim of rather unfortunate accidents. Many involved spilled liquids upon the floor, spoiled food from the canteen, several trips to toilets that were subsequently blocked up.

And if that were not suffice, then the revelation of their deepest secrets being circulated around the school most certainly was.

Sasori stung with venom.

After a year, San was promoted to Head Boy, and ruled the halls with an iron fist. Sasori pattered along after his hero, safely protected in San’s shadow. And yet the time still came, and San left school to attend Oxford University, where he studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics.

Sasori was truly sad to see his hero go, but each month, without fail, a fresh letter of support and encouragement arrived in the post, filling the empty void inside of Sasori more than Granny Chiyo never could. Sasori responded in earnest, his favourite fountain pen dancing across the page, as he told San about his artwork, his studies, his trips out of the school to the cinema and the local theatre by himself at the weekends, his future plans for when he finished school. He kept his tone chirpy and enthusiastic, knowing very well it led to the most positive communication from San. If Sasori was feeling truly in need of company or some pampering, then he knew exactly how to change his tone to get what he wanted.

San responded in kind.

And in return, Sasori read voraciously about San’s studies, envying the descriptions of the endless libraries and local art galleries, wishing that he could be there, living San’s life.

And then Sasori read about San's offer of employment with the government and the secret service, wishing that with his penchant for following gossip and using it to his chosen means in this idle schoolhouse, that he too could join San and do something _useful_ with his skills.

When it was Sasori’s turn to leave school, there was little doubt about where he wanted to go or what he wanted to be.

He would be a spy like San.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this fic and that you are looking forward to the 1940s sasokona! I do have plans to write a companion piece for Konan, detailing how she becomes an assassin, but that's another time...
> 
> In the meantime, any comments, concerns or questions, please fire away! I love short/long comments, and am grateful for your support. I'm also happy with constructive criticism, as long as it is polite and respectful to myself and my work as a writer.


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